Cooperation in Turbulent Times: Strategies of Jews and Muslims in Amsterdam

Roggeveen, Suzanne; Vellenga, Sipco J.; Wiegers, Gerard

doi:10.1080/09596410.2017.1293899

Cited by 4 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…The constructions of Jewish and Muslim minorities in Europe more broadly has been attracting growing attention of anthropologists and researchers from other fields, including explorations of complex examples of interactions between Jewish and Muslim actants in organised initiatives of Jewish-Muslim dialogue (Roggeveen, Vellenga and Wiegers, 2017;Van Esdonk and Wiegers, 2019), everyday encounters (Everett, 2020;Sheldon, 2022a;Sheldon, 2022b), the intersections between imageries that have become to be associated with the two groups (Anidjar, 2008;Judaken, 2018;Katz, 2015;Klug, 2014;Mandel, 2016;Meer, 2013;Meer and Modood, 2012;Meer and Noorani, 2008;Renton and Gidley, 2017) and the overlapping experiences of Jewish and Muslim communities (Arkin, 2013;Arkin, 2018;Bunzl, 2007;Everett, 2018;Everett and Gidley, 2018;Mandel, 2008;Özyürek, 2016;Özyürek, 2018;Silverstein, 2018;Werbner, 2013).…”

Section: Jewish-muslim Relations In the Uk And Beyondmentioning

confidence: 99%

Common difference: Conceptualising simultaneity and racial sincerity in Jewish-Muslim relations in the United Kingdom

Egorova

2023

Anthropological Theory

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Building upon ethnographic research conducted among participants in UK-based initiatives in Jewish-Muslim dialogue, the paper contributes to anthropological literature on the essentialising nature of state-sponsored constructions of minoritised groups. More specifically, I put forward two sets of arguments. Firstly, I suggest a concept of simultaneity that challenges colonially inflected conceptualisations of the relationship between communities and their respective traditions. Activists of Jewish-Muslim inter-community work subvert dominant conceptualisations of intergroup commonalities and divergencies by developing a theorisation of Jewish-Muslim relations that acknowledges group similarities and differences as overlapping categories. Secondly, I contribute to John Jackson's (2005) theorisation of racial sincerity, a notion offering a conceptual challenge to the notion of authenticity. I argue that the complexity of my interlocutors’ thematisations of Jewish-Muslim relations underpinned by the diversity of the sources of knowledge that they rely on could be best understood as an example of this analytic. On a broader theoretical plane, the paper proposes a framework that underscores the agentive power of minority communities and pays close attention to the way they define their positionalities vis-à-vis the majorities and each other in ways that go beyond binaries-based theorisations.

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Section: Jewish-muslim Relations In the Uk And Beyondmentioning

confidence: 99%

Common difference: Conceptualising simultaneity and racial sincerity in Jewish-Muslim relations in the United Kingdom

Egorova

2023

Anthropological Theory

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“…For the application of such strategies for cooperation in times of tension, see Roggeveen, Vellenga, and Wiegers (2017) on Jewish-Muslim relations in Amsterdam.…”

Section: Rationales Behind Jewish-muslim Engagementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Scriptural Reasoning among Jews and Muslims in London: Dynamics of an Inter-Religious Practice

Esdonk

Wiegers

2019

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Scriptural Reasoning (SR)—the philosophical inter-religious study of foundational religious texts—came into being as an academic practice in the 1990s. In this article, based on empirical research, we analyse how in London over the past decades this practice has gradually been applied by new groups—including as a means for Jewish-Muslim engagement, the focus of our research. We discuss the ways in which the role of the foundational religious texts in SR practices has changed and how Jewish and Muslim initiators and participants at the local level now navigate between academic theological guidelines, daily interactions, and grassroots’ objectives for inter-religious engagement. We argue that SR practices, after having been adapted to community and individual needs and responding to religious and social caveats from different sides, provide a meaningful approach to constructive and dynamic interaction and engagement between Jews and Muslims at a grassroots level.

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“…I will demonstrate how in negotiating these differing boundaries, network members productively pursue what scholars of Jewish‐Muslim dialogue have described as strategies of ‘avoidance’ and ‘searching for similarities’ (Roggeveen et al. 2017). At the same time, I will also argue that these strategies – which indeed range from the avoidance of topics that are seen as divisive for Jewish and Muslim participants and focusing on the challenges facing the two groups in the United Kingdom, to a conscious cultivation of a commitment to solidarity through learning about the tradition of the other group and seeking out similarities between Judaism and Islam – could also be understood as ethical routes.…”

mentioning

confidence: 98%

“…I will argue that network members thematize these borders differently, seeing some of them as more tangible (such as the conceptual borders brought about through their membership in the traditions of Judaism and Islam and the division in views about the conflict in the Middle East) and others as ephemeral (such as the perceived border stemming from what they see as external constructions of Jewish and Muslim experience in the United Kingdom). I will demonstrate how in negotiating these differing boundaries, network members productively pursue what scholars of Jewish-Muslim dialogue have described as strategies of 'avoidance' and 'searching for similarities' (Roggeveen et al 2017). At the same time, I will also argue that these strategies -which indeed range from the avoidance of topics that are seen as divisive for Jewish and Muslim participants and focusing on the challenges facing the two groups in the United Kingdom, to a conscious cultivation of a commitment to solidarity through learning about the tradition of the other group and seeking out similarities between Judaism and Islam -could also be understood as ethical routes.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A number of important studies have focused specifically on organized Jewish‐Muslim inter‐group initiatives in the United Kingdom and elsewhere in Europe, examining the broader political context of European inter‐faith work and the particularities of the techniques and strategies that such initiatives have used in enacting inter‐community dialogue. For instance, Susanne Van Esdonk and Gerard Wiegers (2019) have examined the type of ‘bilateral’ Jewish‐Muslim inter‐religious exchange in the context of what became known as Scriptural Reasoning; Fiona Hurst and colleagues have offered a classification of different types of what they describe as ‘categories of contact’ in formalized Jewish‐Muslim interactions in the United Kingdom (Hurst, Nisar, Berliner, Khan & Sharkey 2005); and Susanne Roggeveen, Sipco Vellenga, and Gerard Wiegers (2017) have discussed how Jewish and Muslim activists in Amsterdam have devised a range of strategies that allowed them to co‐operate during times seen as difficult for the relationship between their respective communities.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Ethics without borders: solidarity and difference in inter‐community dialogue

Egorova

2023

Royal Anthropological Inst

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The article offers an ethnographically embedded analysis of a UK‐based Jewish‐Muslim inter‐community network to contribute to anthropological research into the ethical efforts that groups seen as polarized invest in negotiating boundaries of difference. The article makes two sets of arguments. First, it suggests that sometimes such groups have to negotiate not one but several ‘borders across difference’ and follow diverse ethical routes to navigate them depending upon how they conceptualize these borders. Second, it shows that in negotiating different sets of boundaries, network members often use techniques that at first glance appear to be artificial or even superficial in that they build on formal rules and/or contain no promise of achieving a consensus on issues important for the participants. However, I argue that these seemingly superficial efforts could still be seen as ethical endeavours underpinned by a strong commitment to inter‐group solidarity and that they could be best understood as what Ruth Sheldon has described in her recent intervention in the ethics of Jewish ethnography as the movement between surface and depth.

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Cooperation in Turbulent Times: Strategies of Jews and Muslims in Amsterdam

Cited by 4 publications

References 16 publications

Common difference: Conceptualising simultaneity and racial sincerity in Jewish-Muslim relations in the United Kingdom

Common difference: Conceptualising simultaneity and racial sincerity in Jewish-Muslim relations in the United Kingdom

Scriptural Reasoning among Jews and Muslims in London: Dynamics of an Inter-Religious Practice

Ethics without borders: solidarity and difference in inter‐community dialogue

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